Donald on BBC Newcastle

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chriswallace85 said:
It's reet like innit.

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.

It's gotten to a point where he's been backed into a corner, had to cut his leave short and start answering some real questions on the back foot instead of bluffing us with one yarn after another. I just hope this isn't just the latest - benefit of the doubt he seemed genuine enough.
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IMO, Methven made a bad situation worse. SD probably hoped he'd calm the storm but made it worse and then the news yesterday came out.
 


Grumpy Old Man said:
Which makes it worse, because implies that there's been more than one incidence of personal abuse.


Sigh. It doesn't. It owns 100% of the shares in Sunderland Ltd. God, I despair,
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We all care about the club. We all get frustrated and none of us are happy the way things are just now ( personally I feel they could be a shitload worse ) But to let that spill over into incidents like this isn’t acceptable and reflects badly on the club as a whole.
 
Black Cat Gypsy said:
IMO, Methven made a bad situation worse. SD probably hoped he'd calm the storm but made it worse and then the news yesterday came out.
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Despite almost defending him over his podcast the other day, I think he should probably wrap in talking to the fans. A mate said earlier he should be a politician, and that's what he comes across like, and another friggin' politician is the last thing people in this neck of the woods need right now. I'm not saying he should pack his bags as he may well have other merits in marketing department, but him talking with the fans is not a relationship that's working.
 
chriswallace85 said:
Despite almost defending him over his podcast the other day, I think he should probably wrap in talking to the fans. A mate said earlier he should be a politician, and that's what he comes across like, and another friggin' politician is the last thing people in this neck of the woods need right now. I'm not saying he should pack his bags as he may well have other merits in marketing department, but him talking with the fans is not a relationship that's working.
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It would be better if they got their heads together and agreed A consistent message, and stuck to it.
 
I listened to Total Sport, like everyone else. Despite all that was said. Our team are playing very, very badly. It's now halfway through November and we need 6 league wins before New Year.
 
Urraca said:
Forums aren't typically representative of fan groups, or even how forum dwellers conduct themselves in the flesh.
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Hmm. I thought this when the discontent about Ross started. A few months later he was sacked.

You might be wrong. I think people are very angry.
 
An interesting slip by donald last night that appears to have gone under the radar, (sorry if it has been mentioned somewhere). I didnt listen to it live but listened later on. He clearly referred to 4 American billionaires or guys. I cant remember exactly. But he did say 4 and not the 3 that set up FPP.

I am about as far from itk as could be but sometimes get told the odd thing. Weeks ago i was told that, contrary to the official line, dell himself was to be heavily involved but he is very wary of bad publicity and preferred to be seen to be only passively involved. I took it with a pinch of salt at the time but when i heard that it certainly piqued my interest.
 
The 'if we need to spend' quote is interesting. Especially as he said the same in the summer.

I'd argue we need to sign a player for every postion we added to in the summer again in Jan and there's nobody out of contract then.
Grumpy Old Man said:
Which makes it worse, because implies that there's been more than one incidence of personal abuse.


Sigh. It doesn't. It owns 100% of the shares in Sunderland Ltd. God, I despair,
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Shocking behaviour. Especially considering one of those instances is coming from one of the biggest shitehawks on the board.

Mind, as I've said, I was called a wanker recently for merely daring to drive a car on a road. I'm not leaving the house ever again.
 
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Kermit said:
An interesting slip by donald last night that appears to have gone under the radar, (sorry if it has been mentioned somewhere). I didnt listen to it live but listened later on. He clearly referred to 4 American billionaires or guys. I cant remember exactly. But he did say 4 and not the 3 that set up FPP.

I am about as far from itk as could be but sometimes get told the odd thing. Weeks ago i was told that, contrary to the official line, dell himself was to be heavily involved but he is very wary of bad publicity and preferred to be seen to be only passively involved. I took it with a pinch of salt at the time but when i heard that it certainly piqued my interest.
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I noticed that too. Interesting. Challenge for everyone is to get them more involved.
 
threepenny bits said:
Listened to this last night and I'v calmed down a bit since, so many contradictions, I don't know why they haven't been up front when legally, via companies house etc, the truth comes out eventually.

They have done themselves no favours at all and lost a lot of trust with many fans, including myself.

He wasn't convincing last night, in fact he gave me more reasons not to trust him.

However that being said, and I've calmed down a bit, not many owners would publicly speak about these things, a statement that they had several people preparing was the easier option, I do think he has the clubs interest at heart, yes he will want to make a few quid out of it, I have no problem with that at all, few people work for nothing, which leads me to think that he will do right by the club, better the club does the better he does out of it, as said no issue at all with that.

It's clear that the negotiations for the takeover, and it was a takeover, Donald denied that before but stated it last night, did not go to plan, my take on this is that the current owners have valued the business on the future, which is quite normal, FFP didnt agree, Donald has said something along the lines of it will only take 10m to turn this club around and achieve the tagrets he has valued the business on, FFP have said there's the 10m then show us you can do it and we will agree to your terms.

The positive thing from this is that FFP clearly want to be involved

Donald and Methven, as I said at the start, have spouted too much hot air and contradicted each other, they realise this, they have a massive January coming up, he's made the decision rightly or wrongly with the manager, and has to back him, nowthat we have some funds lets hope they get the recruitment right, we still have a chance of going up as this league is shite, we need to shift the disruptive lazy players and get some togetherness, once the fans see this they will be onside, no reason why we can't go on run of wins.
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FPP not FFP.

FPP is the investors' surnames' initials.

FFP is Financial Fair Play, the rules about club finances in the higher divisions.
 
He needs to get the manager / team delivering. He said so himself. Not quite panic stations yet and he’s said we’ll invest in the squad in Jan. Fair enough.
Need to keep getting behind the team ... difficult .. but we need to keep going
 
Dilligaf60 said:
It would be better if they got their heads together and agreed A consistent message, and stuck to it.
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Whey exactly. But like this past week, in one interview you've got Charlie telling us the abuse is really getting to Donald (he's human, it might be) and this is why he's come off twitter and won't be doing this and that engaging with the fans and going to games any more. And then a few days later you get Donald himself on saying well actually, twitter wasn't working (correct), I've got family and I need a break (fair play), but the fans have been great for the most part, I've plans to come back to games, the abuse hurts but hasn't affected that.

Now I actually don't think either of them were lying or trying to mislead anyone there. Charlie's sticking up for his mate and addressing the abuse issue one way, whilst Donald obviously has other things on his plate and the shit he gets is something he doesn't need. The problem is the message is inconsistent so people start questioning them.

What Charlie had to say was pretty divisive, and it's caused a rift among the support who are now getting at each other's throats. Wrong message.

Being on Twitter and being on the terraces was always going to be an accident waiting to happen. I get that they're football fans, they like a pint, and it's exciting and all that, but the lesson learned has to be look, you're at Sunderland AFC now, one of the game's oldest professional clubs - start being professional. Stick to the Director's box, and communicate through the proper channels.
 
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Shibby Safc said:
This thread summarised:

Safc fans: we're worried that we're being lied to again and fear the worst, given the last 4 years of this clubs management.

Other safc fans: our fans are cringeworthy and shit for being worried that they're being lied to, and only me a "good fan", knows this and I feel compelled to tell everyone else that they're cringeworthy and shit.

CM: our fans caused SD to come off Twitter.

My point is, nothing in the last 4 years can be blamed on the fans. Yet here we go again with the constant bashing. How about this. If the club hadn't fucked every single thing up for the last 4 years (at least), they might have more patient and trusting fans.

However we always hear about the "negativity". Christ, I'm surprised there hasn't been a total utter boycott given then last 4 years, any other club would have. Our fans are simply awesome. 30k (there abouts) every week. 45k on boxing day last year. Sell outs almost every away day. Even a little glimmer of something gets total backing, JR got all the backing in the world, the cup final to the PO final, even after we'd fucked up automatics.

This is where I commend @Cack Stottie and RR for once as I thought last poddy with Methven they were very good at hitting back on this point. Methven was, again, out of line. And SD quickly tried to put that right last night.
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Excellent post. Dont know about you but im completely conflicted. On the one hand we have to try and trust people who say they are doing the best for the club. On the other... can we trust people who are coming out with some strange comments that doesnt add up?
 
chriswallace85 said:
Whey exactly. But like this past week, in one interview you've got Charlie telling us the abuse is really getting to Donald (he's human, it might be) and this is why he's come off twitter and won't be doing this and that engaging with the fans and going to games any more. And then a few days later you get Donald himself on saying well actually, twitter wasn't working (correct), I've got family and I need a break (fair play), but the fans have been great for the most part, I've plans to come back to games, the abuse hurts but hasn't affected that.

Now I actually don't think either of them were lying or trying to mislead anyone there. Charlie's sticking up for his mate and addressing the abuse issue one way, whilst Donald obviously has other things on his plate and the shit he gets is something he doesn't need. The problem is the message is inconsistent so people start questioning them.

What Charlie had to say was pretty divisive, and it's caused a rift among the support who are now getting at each other's throats. Wrong message.

Being on Twitter and being on the terraces was always going to be an accident waiting to happen. I get that they're football fans, they like a pint, and it's exciting and all that, but the lesson learned has to be look, you're at Sunderland AFC now, one of the game's oldest professional clubs - start being professional. Stick to the Director's box, and communicate through the proper channels.
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I agree. Consistency in communication is key. They need to talk to each other before they put the message out there. We as a club needed more transparency than we had, previously the silence had been deafening. I was delighted with them being more open but they went too far. Engaging with fans via social media was only going to end up one way when you leave yourself and the club wide open to mags, wums and every other nut job with an agenda. I would still like them to be open, but more professional in their approach. They can still do talk ins and the occasional podcast, but not as many, but discuss the approach to take beforehand and ffs stay off Twitter.
 
chriswallace85 said:
I don't think there was any misunderstanding over what/who he was referring to though.
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I don't know about you, but if I was using the wrong word or abbreviation for something, I'd prefer it if someone pointed it out so that I could use the correct one in future.
 
Roker Mackem said:
Excellent post. Dont know about you but im completely conflicted. On the one hand we have to try and trust people who say they are doing the best for the club. On the other... can we trust people who are coming out with some strange comments that doesnt add up?
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I'm almost willing to draw a line under the last 18 months and consider the investment as a new start. I can't forget the bluster and the bullshit or the shit football, but I can look past it if we can just start moving in the right direction. He's answerable to a bunch of wealthy Americans now rather than just a set of fans desperate for a club to be proud of again. Money talks n all that...

Stewart Donald 18/19 - must do better.

Please f***ing do. And quick about it.
 
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